


Like Cold Fire

by Ariss_Tenoh



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: Complete, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:52:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariss_Tenoh/pseuds/Ariss_Tenoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It looked a bit like Coldfire, Damien thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Cold Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on March 13th 2006.
> 
> This is set after Crown of Shadows.

He sat in a room on the second floor of an old inn. The sun was setting and the sky was drenched in tones of red, orange, and fading yellow. It made Damien think of old bruises and dried blood.

 

There was a bottle of ale in his hand. He hadn't even opened it, but held it in his sword-calloused hands until he'd leeched it of its coolness.

 

Funny, in the past he'd done everything to stay warm on his travels.

 

He was slumped in his chair, gazing at the window until even the Core had set. Night spread its black fingers across the sky and the temperature dropped rapidly. It always did in the desert.

 

Damien couldn't remember where he'd ended up in, some small inn in some small town. He'd headed West across the Divider Mountains as soon as he could, unable to stay a day more in Jaggonath. Or anywhere near that city.

 

The room was dark now. He looked around for his box of matches.

 

On the wooden table, a lamp sat. It was hollow on the inside, allowing only a tall candle to be placed on a circular metal holder at its bottom. On the outside, tiny ornaments in every geometrical shape known to man hung from metal strings. The ornaments were made from shards of white, and blue crystal and bits of blue glass.

 

He'd bought it at a local fair. He didn't remember which town it was held at, but he must have passed through it at some point. The girl who made the crystal lamps had smiled at him, happy that someone had brought her handmade pieces and wished him well. Her husband, barely older than her, had stood behind her and smiled at his wife's enthusiasm.

 

_We're priests, Damien but we're human. We love and protect love. But you mustn’t allow that love to blind you to your true purpose. To serve the Church, to uphold its laws. Ours is a calling of self-sacrifice. Love your partner, love the feelings given to you, but never be possessed by it. Our bodies and our souls are not our own to bestow upon anyone._

 

Damien placed a tall white candle in the lamp. He lit a match, the sound of fire cracking to life was deafening after the day's utter silence.

 

The glass ornaments swayed slightly in the wake of an air current he couldn't feel.

 

The lamp was beautiful. He'd carried it with him in his travel bag from place to place, sometimes lighting it in a cave or under the night sky when he camped outside.

 

Damien looked at the lamp. It was beautiful.

 

The curtain of dangling ornaments around the candle glowed and refracted its light. It gave the room a cold muted blue glow, not truly illuminating it.

 

A shudder and a slow, painful exhalation.

 

The lamp was beautiful. So was its light.

 

The light it gave looked a bit like Coldfire, Damien thought.

 

The chair he sat on trembled. The shadow of a body half-bent over the table made the lamp's light brighter. The silence in the room was broken by a sob... and the faint, very faint sound of tears hitting wood.

 

Damien knew he'd failed his master's teachings just as he'd failed another man.

 

He wasn't fit to be a priest.

 

He was a man possessed.

 

~ End ~


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